Toronto's selection of Italian player Andrea Bargnani with the first pick in Wednesday's draft highlights a growing trend in basketball: Foreign players are gradually eclipsing their American counterparts.

Bargnani's selection marked the second consecutive year a foreign-born player was taken first overall. Former Utah standout Andrew Bogut, who Milwaukee took with the top pick last year, is originally from Australia.

It also marked the second time since Houston took Yao Ming in 2002 that the top pick played neither high school nor college ball in the U.S.

Bargnani himself has drawn comparisons to Dallas' Dirk Nowitzki, who came to the NBA from Germany in 1998 and has become one of the game's most recognizable stars.

Nothing against foreign players -- more power to them -- but the trend isn't a good reflection on the state of the American game, which is unfortunate.

Basketball is, after all, the most American of all sports.

Baseball is most likely derived from the English sport cricket. American football is most definitely a descendant of soccer and rugby.

The roots of basketball, on the other hand, are planted firmly in American soil. Planted there, ironically, by a Canadian.

James Naismith, a former athletic director at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, was working as a physical education teacher at a Massachusetts YMCA when he invented the game in 1891. His intention was to create an indoor sport for those cold Massachusetts winters -- something to pass the time between football and baseball seasons.

Through the years, Naismith's time-passer has evolved into one of the most popular sports in the world, but the basic fundamentals of the game have been lost amidst dunks, cross-overs and Dennis Rodman.

Part of the problem is the way the sport is presented in this country, particularly on television. Dunks are exciting, and excitement sells.

As Arkansas Tech men's basketball coach Mark Downey put it, "You watch the top 10 Sportscenter highlights, and eight of them are dunks."

Downey, who took over the Tech program in April, knows a thing or two about the difference between foreign and American players. One of his first recruits was Poland native Rafal Stolarek, who Downey referred to at the time as "a nuts-and-bolts kind of guy."

Downey offered a laundry list of culprits, not the least of which are the vast number of diversions available in today's high-tech world. Television, internet, video games -- all conspire to prevent kids from spending an afternoon perfecting their jump shot.

"It's a product of the culture," Downey said.

American kids of today also have more athletic options available. The camp market, Downey said, is saturated with different sports, enough to keep players occupied year-round.

Of course, many young basketball prodigies spend their summers playing AAU ball, but those camps are less about learning and more about auditioning for college scouts and agents, Downey said.

"All the camps are exposure camps," he said. " These kids go to these camps and all they do is play. They don't work on fundamentals."

It's a formula that Downey said prevents youngsters from learning the most important fundamental of all: How to win.

"They play four or five games in a day," he said. "If they lose, oh well, they play again in an hour."